360 failure rate is probably higher than 16%, says warrantee firm

According to this, SquareTrade, the company that made headlines earlier this month for claiming that Xbox 360 has a hardware failure rate of around 16 percent, has now made a statement saying the actual figure it likely to be higher.

Because of the date range studied, SquareTrade said it was unlikely that any modified 360s – announced by Microsoft in July to combat overheating problems – were included in the initial 1,000-strong sample of warrantees.

Because the report only tracked the sample for between six and 10 months after warranty purchase, SquareTrade said the failure rate may be low. If tracking would have continued for 24 to 36 months, the company said “the fail rate is certain to go up.”